but also for the uninterrupted soundness of its currency. The statements we have given of its progressive and present situation show how far these expectations have hitherto been realized.

"Those statements also show that the Bank of the United States, wherever its operations have been extended, has effectually checked excessive issues on the part of the State Banks, if not in every instance, certainly in the aggregate. They had been reduced, before the year 1820, from $66,000,000 to less than $40,000,000. At that time, those of the Bank of the United States fell short of $4,000,000. The increased amount required by the increase of population and wealth during the ten ensuing years has been supplied in a much greater proportion by that Bank than by those of the States. With a treble capital, they have added little more than $8,000,000 to their issues. Those of the Bank of the United States were nominally $12,000,000 in reality about $11,000,000-greater in November, 1829, than in November, 1819. The whole amount of the paper currency has, during those ten years, increased about 45, and that portion which is issued by the State Banks, only 223 per cent. We have indeed a proof, not very acceptable perhaps to the Bank, but conclusive of the fact that it has performed the office required of it in that respect. The general complaints, on the part of many of the State Banks, that they are checked and controlled in their operations by the Bank of the United States, that, to use a common expression, 'it operates as a screw,' is the best evidence that its general operation is such as had been intended. It was for that very purpose that the Bank was established. We are not, however, aware that a single solvent Bank has been injured by that of the United States, though many have undoubtedly been restrained in the extent of their operations much more than was desirable to them. This is certainly inconvenient to some of the Banks, but in its general effects is a public benefit to the community.

"The manner in which the Bank checks the issue of the State Banks is equally simple and obvious. It consists in receiving the notes of all those which are solvent, and requiring payment from time to time, without suffering the balance due by any to become too large. Those notes on hand, taking the average of the three and a half last years, amount always to about $1,500,000; and the balances due by the Banks in account current (deducting balances due to some), to about $900,000. We think we may say that, on this operation, which requires particular attention and vigilance, and must be carried on with great firmness and due forbearance, depends almost exclusively the stability of the currency of the country." 1

To overcome the force of the arguments of Mr. Madison and Mr. Gallatin, which carried with them the intelligence and the better sense of the nation, Jackson was driven to a new issue. In the first, the Bank was unconstitutional, and did not accom

1 Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the United States.

plish its objects, — the creation of a currency uniform in value. It was now an institution wholly incompatible with our form of government, the liberties and the moral and material welfare of the people; and he appealed to them, at the price of every thing they held dear, to come to his aid in putting down "the monster," as he was accustomed to term the Bank. indictment against it is fully set forth in his final legacy, farewell address, which, in imitation of Washington, he delivered to the country at the close of his official life, a year after the charter of the Bank expired, and passion had time to cool. In this he said,

His his

"Recent events have proved that the paper-money system of this country may be used as an engine to undermine your free institutions; and those who desire to engross all power in the hands of the few, and to govern by corruption or force, are aware of its power, and prepared to employ it. Your Banks now furnish your only circulating medium, and money is plenty or scarce according to the quantity of notes issued by them. While they have capitals not greatly disproportioned to each other, they are competitors in business, and no one of them can exercise dominion over the rest: and although, in the present state of the currency, these Banks may and do operate injuriously upon the habits of business, the pecuniary concerns, and the moral tone of society, yet, from their number and dispersed situation, they cannot combine for the purposes of political influence; and, whatever may be the disposition of some of them, their power of mischief must necessarily be confined to a narrow space, and felt only in their immediate neighborhoods. "But when the charter for the Bank of the United States was obtained from Congress, it perfected the schemes of the paper system, and gave to its advocates the position they have struggled to obtain, from the commencement of the Federal Government to the present hour. The immense capital and peculiar privileges bestowed upon it enabled it to exercise despotic sway over the other Banks in every part of the country. From its superior strength, it could seriously injure, if not destroy, the business of any one of them which might incur its resentment; and it openly claimed for itself the power of regulating the currency throughout the United States. . . .

"The result of the ill-advised legislation which established this great monopoly was to concentrate the whole moneyed power of the Union, with its boundless means of corruption and its numerous dependents, under the direction and command of one acknowledged head thus organizing this particular interest as one body, and securing to it unity and concert of action throughout the United States; and enabling it to bring forward, upon any occasion, its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat any measure of the government. In the hands of this formidable power, thus perfectly

organized, was also placed unlimited dominion over the amount of the circulating medium; giving it the power to regulate the value of property and the fruits of labor in every city of the Union, and to bestow property or bring ruin upon any city or section of the country, as might best comport with its own interest or policy.

"We are not left to conjecture how the moneyed power, thus organized, and with such a weapon in its hands, would be likely to use it. The distress and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole country when the Bank of the United States waged war upon the people, in order to compel them to submit to its demands, cannot yet be forgotten. The ruthless and unsparing temper with which whole cities and communities were oppressed, individuals impoverished and ruined, and a scene of cheerful prosperity suddenly changed into one of gloom and despondency, ought to be indelibly impressed on the memory of the people of the United States. If such was its power in a time of peace, what would it not have been in a season of war, with an enemy at your doors? No nation but the freemen of the United States could have come out victorious from such a contest: yet, if you had not conquered, the government would have passed from the hands of the many to the hands of the few; and this organized money power, from its secret conclave, would have dictated the choice of your highest officers, and compelled you to make peace or war as best suited their own wishes. The forms of your government might, for a time, have remained; but its living spirit would have departed from it. . . .

"It is one of the serious evils of our present system of banking, that it enables one class of society, and that by no means a numerous one, by its control over the currency, to act injuriously upon the interests of all the others, and to exercise more than its just proportion of influence in political affairs. The agricultural, the mechanical, and the laboring classes have little or no share in the direction of the great moneyed corporations; and, from their habits and the nature of their pursuits, they are incapable of forming expensive combinations to act together with united force. Such concert of action may sometimes be produced in a single city, or in a small district of country, by means of personal communications with each other: but they have no regular or active correspondence with those who are engaged in similar pursuits in distant places; they have but little patronage to give to the press, and exercise but a small share of influence over it; they have no crowd of dependents about them, who hope to grow rich without labor, by their countenance and favor, and who are, therefore, always ready to execute their wishes. The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer, all know that their success depends upon their own industry and economy, and that they must not expect to become suddenly rich by the fruits of their toil. Yet these classes of society form the great body of the people of the United States; they are the bone and sinew of the country; men who love liberty, and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws, and who,

moreover, hold the great mass of our national wealth, although it is distributed in moderate amounts among the million of freemen who possess it. But, with overwhelming numbers and wealth on their side, they are in constant danger of losing their fair influence in the government, and with difficulty maintain their just rights against the incessant efforts daily made to encroach upon them. The mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control; from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges, which they have succeeded in obtaining in the different States, and which are employed altogether for their benefit; and, unless you become more watchful in your States, and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges, you will, in the end, find that the most important powers of government have been given or bartered away, and the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.

"The paper-money system, and its natural associations, monopoly and exclusive privileges, have already struck their roots too deep in the soil; and it will require all your efforts to check its further growth, and to eradicate the evil. The men who profit by the abuses, and desire to perpetuate them, will continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the general government, as well as in the States, and will seek, by every artifice, to mislead and deceive the public servants. It is to yourselves that you must look for safety and the means of guarding and perpetuating your free institutions. In your hands is rightfully placed the sovereignty of the country, and to you every one placed in authority is ultimately responsible. It is always in your power to see that the wishes of the people are carried into faithful execution; and their will, when once made known, must sooner or later be obeyed. And while the people remain, as I trust they ever will, uncorrupted and incorruptible, and continue watchful and jealous of their rights, the government is safe, and the cause of freedom will continue to triumph over all its enemies.

"But it will require steady and persevering exertions on your part to rid yourselves of the iniquities and mischiefs of the paper system, and to check the spirit of monopoly and other abuses which have sprung up with it, and of which it is the main support. So many interests are united to resist all reform on this subject, that you must not hope the conflict will be a short one, nor success easy. My humble efforts have not been spared, during my administration of the government, to restore the constitutional currency of gold and silver; and something, I trust, has been done towards the accomplishment of this most desirable object. But enough yet remains to require all your energy and perseverance. The power, however, is in your hands; and the remedy must and will be applied, if you determine upon it."

This was the first deliberate and successful attempt in this country to arouse local and sectional jealousies, to array the

!

agricultural against the manufacturing and commercial classes, labor against capital, and the poor against the rich. Against a demagogue so adroit and unscrupulous, and who in his mastery over the baser instincts of the race has never been excelled, it was perhaps at the time impossible to make headway. His prodigious untruthfulness and falsifications of history would, at the present day, defeat themselves. No assertion could have been more false than that the commercial and manufacturing classes, the managers of its Banks, had, from the foundation of our government, been in desperate league to overthrow the liberties of the nation, and erect an unscrupulous oligarchy upon their ruins, classes who of all others had the most at stake in their preservation. The success which followed Jackson's attack upon the Bank enables us to understand fully that which followed Jefferson's attack upon Hamilton, as having for his whole purpose the supplanting by a monarchy, of the Republic which, with the single exception of Washington, he contributed most to establish. Hamilton told the people that they required a strong government, as a means of dealing with the refractory elements which existed on every side, that their lawless instincts were not their proper guide. His eye took in the vast continent upon which only a lodgement had then been made; and his polity was framed in view of its possession by a people whose sectional jealousies and peculiarities were to be controlled by laws of universal application, supported by adequate provision for their vigorous enforcement. In his presence every indolent, indifferent, incapable, and lawless nature stood rebuked, and instinctively rallied itself around the banner of his great enemy and rival. All excellence that rises much above the ordinary level is a dangerous possession, especially when it assumes to direct and control weaker or baser natures than its own. By dextrous appeals to the passions and prejudices of the people, Jefferson persuaded them that Hamilton, by opposing license, was an enemy of civil liberty. Under such a charge, which came to be considered as proved, under such a load of obloquy, his memory rested till the War of the Rebellion. Till then Jefferson was the demigod of the nation. By that event was he completely dethroned. Then for the first time had Hamilton a standing in the court of the nation, a right even to be heard. Jefferson